stryed:Oh my...Cargo shift huh? Never heard of that before...I will be keeping an eye on the fatties walking about the aisle from now on. THEY SHALL NOT AGGLOMERATE UNDER MY WATCH!!

Even really stupendous fatties are essentially weightless fluff compared to an armored vehicle, which is what everyone is saying the plane was carrying. An APC weighs like 30,000lbs, and tanks are well over 100,000. I imagine if one of those pops loose during takeoff and slides to the back of the plane, there's not much you can do besides soil yourself.

raygundan:stryed: Oh my...Cargo shift huh? Never heard of that before...I will be keeping an eye on the fatties walking about the aisle from now on. THEY SHALL NOT AGGLOMERATE UNDER MY WATCH!!

Even really stupendous fatties are essentially weightless fluff compared to an armored vehicle, which is what everyone is saying the plane was carrying. An APC weighs like 30,000lbs, and tanks are well over 100,000. I imagine if one of those pops loose during takeoff and slides to the back of the plane, there's not much you can do besides soil yourself.

Unless it's 100 fatties weighing 500kg each! Seriously, that does put things in perspective. Must be difficult fastening 50tons into place. I'm guessing noone made it and this whole situation sucks...

what was with the sound in that video? You can hear the cameraman screwing with the thing...you can hear him curse ONCE, a good minute after the plane has augured in...but you can't hear the KABOOM of a giant plane hitting the ground and exploding?

juvandy:for the uninitiated, can someone explain how a cargo shift causes that?

How about an explanation that even a normal person can understand.

Say I give you a rucksack that's stuffed to the brim with heavy equipment. That's your load, and your back will today be playing the part of the cargo bay of our unfortunate aircraft. Get that load on, son!

Good. Now run the obstacle course.

I forgot to tell you, that ruck has a bad seam on one shoulder strap...if that breaks while you're in mid-sprint, what do you give your chances of being able to keep control, as opposed to being flung around by the weight of your out-of-control load?

Lsherm:I need you to explain, in simple terms, why you think that plane took off ass down and nose up right off the runway to the point that it fell into a stall that suddenly shifted. In a cargo plane. Use physics.

netringer:Because 747 pilots have no idea that yank-back-on-the-yoke-and-don't-let-go will lead to a stall/spin but you do?

The alternative explanation seems to be that everyone on Fark knows how to load a plane better than the load master.

Incidentally, if you read the accident report on AF447 you'll see the transcript of three fully trained and highly experienced commercial pilots completely failing to recognize a stall for several minutes.

If the airplane was tail-heavy enough to overwhelm the elevator, it would have come down tail first. It impacted nose first.

Put me down for human error (only because it usually is), or control system malfunction.

Hmm, well if a load has come loose, it will STAY loose, and act like a giant slide hammer.

Step 1: While in a climb, the cargo comes loose and proceeds to slide to the back of the plane. The plane is now suddenly rear-heavy, along with there being a hell of a BANG coming from the cargo bay as everything hits the back wall. The plane pitches tail-down.Step 2: The pilot goes "Oh shiat!" and shoves his stick forward to correct for the tail-down attitude. This works well until he passes 0 degrees, at which point the plane is now slightly nose down.Step 3: All the loose shiat that was in the tail? It's still following gravity and still unrestrained, and is therefore now sliding towards the nose.Step 4: The plane is now massively NOSE-heavy. Nose-first crash ensues.

HBK:So fark pilot folks my question is this- I thought jet wash dissipates pretty rapidly. So how close were we to another jet for jetwash to cause what happened?

The vortex wake lasts a surprisingly long time. I remember a 737 captain showing me (I was in the jump seat) that by shifting up and down by 50 feet he could move in and out of the wake of the last plane to go down that airway, which would have been 10 or more minutes before. Shows how accurate altimeters and navigation receivers are too.

Thunderboy:I'm sure soaring is an amazing experience, but everything about the sport just screams "this is not something people should do" to me.

You'rein a small, light aircraft, designed to land in small fields and with no fuel around to go boom. Much safer feeling than powered stuff, for me anyway. Mind you I was the seventeenth glider to enter the first good thermal I ever used, which was interesting.

orbister:Thunderboy: I'm sure soaring is an amazing experience, but everything about the sport just screams "this is not something people should do" to me.

You'rein a small, light aircraft, designed to land in small fields and with no fuel around to go boom. Much safer feeling than powered stuff, for me anyway. Mind you I was the seventeenth glider to enter the first good thermal I ever used, which was interesting.

Got to watch a glider perform at an airshow once. I never knew that they can do most of the basic aerobatic maneuvers, only more slowly. Barrel rolls, loops, aileron rolls, etc. Very impressive.

Ishidan:thedumbone: Put me down as the (first?) to say - NOT a load shift.

If the airplane was tail-heavy enough to overwhelm the elevator, it would have come down tail first. It impacted nose first.

Put me down for human error (only because it usually is), or control system malfunction.

Hmm, well if a load has come loose, it will STAY loose, and act like a giant slide hammer.

Step 1: While in a climb, the cargo comes loose and proceeds to slide to the back of the plane. The plane is now suddenly rear-heavy, along with there being a hell of a BANG coming from the cargo bay as everything hits the back wall. The plane pitches tail-down.Step 2: The pilot goes "Oh shiat!" and shoves his stick forward to correct for the tail-down attitude. This works well until he passes 0 degrees, at which point the plane is now slightly nose down.Step 3: All the loose shiat that was in the tail? It's still following gravity and still unrestrained, and is therefore now sliding towards the nose.Step 4: The plane is now massively NOSE-heavy. Nose-first crash ensues.

Yah it looks like when he stalled and rolled 90° to the right the nose fell faster than the tail and that let the cargo slide back forward.

I bet they would have survived the stupid 747 tricks if the cargo had come loose 30 seconds later.

raygundan:stryed: Oh my...Cargo shift huh? Never heard of that before...I will be keeping an eye on the fatties walking about the aisle from now on. THEY SHALL NOT AGGLOMERATE UNDER MY WATCH!!

Even really stupendous fatties are essentially weightless fluff compared to an armored vehicle, which is what everyone is saying the plane was carrying. An APC weighs like 30,000lbs, and tanks are well over 100,000. I imagine if one of those pops loose during takeoff and slides to the back of the plane, there's not much you can do besides soil yourself.

I was on a 747 from NYC to Europe. After landing, they held us on the plane until cargo could be unloaded, as our combined passenger weight was keeping the nose on the ground.

As I was waiting, the ground crew popped open the clamshell cover around one of the engines. Gradually more and more guys came over. There was a lot of face pulling, head scratching, pointing, waving more guys over and some serious head shaking whenever one walked away. Obviously, I have no idea what actually went wrong, but from the keystone cop body language, it was something major and they seemed suprised it hadn't fallen right off. In fact, as I was leaving the airport, it was being towed, with the covers still open, to what looked like a heavy repair hanger way out in the boondocks.

orbister:Lsherm: I need you to explain, in simple terms, why you think that plane took off ass down and nose up right off the runway to the point that it fell into a stall that suddenly shifted. In a cargo plane. Use physics.

Ishidan:thedumbone: Put me down as the (first?) to say - NOT a load shift.

If the airplane was tail-heavy enough to overwhelm the elevator, it would have come down tail first. It impacted nose first.

Put me down for human error (only because it usually is), or control system malfunction.

Hmm, well if a load has come loose, it will STAY loose, and act like a giant slide hammer.

Step 1: While in a climb, the cargo comes loose and proceeds to slide to the back of the plane. The plane is now suddenly rear-heavy, along with there being a hell of a BANG coming from the cargo bay as everything hits the back wall. The plane pitches tail-down.Step 2: The pilot goes "Oh shiat!" and shoves his stick forward to correct for the tail-down attitude. This works well until he passes 0 degrees, at which point the plane is now slightly nose down.Step 3: All the loose shiat that was in the tail? It's still following gravity and still unrestrained, and is therefore now sliding towards the nose.Step 4: The plane is now massively NOSE-heavy. Nose-first crash ensues.

Ishidan:what was with the sound in that video? You can hear the cameraman screwing with the thing...you can hear him curse ONCE, a good minute after the plane has augured in...but you can't hear the KABOOM of a giant plane hitting the ground and exploding?

You're not in a Michael Bay movie. There is no explosion, just a lot a fuel catching on fire very quickly.

GoldDude:Who can't learn to set the date/time on his dash-cam? Remarkable video, and one that will hopefully be used when training people about the importance of securing cargo loads.

Some idiot dash cams reset their clock when you disconnect them from power. A stupid design if you're talking about something that's supposed to start and stop based on whether or not it has power input. But, alas, some actually do this. Worse, some models with GPS, despite having access to a highly precise time source don't set their own clock and reset when left without power.

That said, I'm in the market for a dash cam that sets it's own clock based on GPS, saves to standard video formats (MPEG, anyone?) and traces in standard geolocation formats (GPX, anyone?). Amazingly, despite blisteringly obvious open standards...I've yet to find one on the market that fits the bill. And I'd rather do without than get tied into crapware on a platform I don't usually use...

Ishidan:what was with the sound in that video? You can hear the cameraman screwing with the thing...you can hear him curse ONCE, a good minute after the plane has augured in...but you can't hear the KABOOM of a giant plane hitting the ground and exploding?

Vaporised fuel igniting in a fireball is not strictly speaking an explosion. There won't be a sonic boom pressure wave for one.

orbister:netringer: Because 747 pilots have no idea that yank-back-on-the-yoke-and-don't-let-go will lead to a stall/spin but you do?

The alternative explanation seems to be that everyone on Fark knows how to load a plane better than the load master.

Incidentally, if you read the accident report on AF447 you'll see the transcript of three fully trained and highly experienced commercial pilots completely failing to recognize a stall for several minutes.

Because they had been trained that the aircraft could not stall, and didn't notice that it had exited that foolproof mode. Like driving a car that has ABS brakes. If you didn't realise they were not working you'd mash the brake pedal to the floor in an emergency and cause a skid. If you knew the ABS wasn't working you'd moderate your braking effort to avoid locking up.

Flint Ironstag:orbister: netringer: Because 747 pilots have no idea that yank-back-on-the-yoke-and-don't-let-go will lead to a stall/spin but you do?

The alternative explanation seems to be that everyone on Fark knows how to load a plane better than the load master.

Incidentally, if you read the accident report on AF447 you'll see the transcript of three fully trained and highly experienced commercial pilots completely failing to recognize a stall for several minutes.

Because they had been trained that the aircraft could not stall, and didn't notice that it had exited that foolproof mode. Like driving a car that has ABS brakes. If you didn't realise they were not working you'd mash the brake pedal to the floor in an emergency and cause a skid. If you knew the ABS wasn't working you'd moderate your braking effort to avoid locking up.

not to refute the point you are making, ABS isn't a solid analogy. You know right away if ABS isn't working.

Smallberries:Skyrmion: This is a bit off-topic, but can anyone explain to me what those static beeps are at 0:47 of the video? I've heard them in a lot of radio broadcasts, but I don't know what they are.

Sounds like cell phone interference. Used to get it if my cell was too close to a speaker cable. It happens all the time, I think it's the cell phone saying "I'm here any calls?" because it does not happen only as a call comes in.

The pattern seems more consistent with the phone making an outgoing call. I can hear the synch pattern followed by a solid buzz indicating a call in progress.

/I work out of my car, I hear this shiat all the time//Really bad when I'm listening to music on the tape adapter and got the adapter cord caught in the mount against the phone's antenna

tgambitg:Flint Ironstag: Skyrmion: This is a bit off-topic, but can anyone explain to me what those static beeps are at 0:47 of the video? I've heard them in a lot of radio broadcasts, but I don't know what they are.

Cell phone. I hear them on my car radio if my phone is sitting on the tray under the radio. You hear them ever few minutes as the phone has to fine the closest tower and tell the tower it's there.

It's a phenomenon unique to GSM phones. CDMA and LTE (in most bands) won't cause the same interference. iDEN phones, on the other hand, drive electronics crazy. I had a junk iDEN phone that would cause my alarm clock on my nightstand to act as if it experienced a power surge and reset the time every time that phone talked to the tower.

Ah it's been quite some time since I've heard that sound, brings back memories of pre 2008 for me. That interference used to be my "ringtone", I'd usually keep my phone on silent but if my speakers started to act crazy then I knew I was about to get a text or call.

No, but a warning could have let the pilots know that something was going wrong in time to save the plane.

Did you watch the video? Read what the most likely cause was? Cargo Shifted, game was over. I'm pretty darn sure all sorts of alarms were going off. Its not like they wouldn't have noticed what was happening without it.

Baloo Uriza:realityVSperception: Now I heard that a few years ago, so I'm pretty certain that cell networks have become more robust since then, but the basic problem is the same.

Nope. Ask anybody trying to make a cellphone call in Boston on Patriot's Day.

I was refering to analog vs digital networks. But yeah, the cell system simply can't handleeveryone calling 911 at once. A lot has to happen to get that call through.

First, the call is routed to a 3rd party. They take the cell tower the call came in on and do adatabase lookup to determine which 911 center should get the call. Then whilethe call is being routed and answered, the cell network gets a location fix either bygps or triangulation. This is then passed on to the third party who passes the locationdata to the 911 operator. The 911 operator can also ask for location updates during the call.

One hidden tricky part is this. Originally 911 was implemented by the baby bells over landlines.The messaging formats used to get the calling phone address and caller id data from the telco databasesto the 911 desks varied between the baby bells. There were two major formats used originally(plus a couple of new ones added after cell phones took off). This wasn't a problem because theywere closed systems. Until cell phones came along. So now you have a cell phone using theprovider's format trying to reach a 911 desk which potentially uses a competing carrier's format.The third party routing the 911 call from the phone to the 911 operator has to reformat thedata between the different communication protocols to make sure everything connects.

These systems also have to be redundant and operate with 99.9999% uptime. As a result they arecomplicated and expensive. But they are sized for normal 911 call volume. When the big one hits california, forget about it. For starters, there aren't enough operators on duty to take the call volume, and the cell system just can't push that many calls through all at once.

buzzcut73:fatbear: For all those using coins and paper and aerodynamics theories you learned in high school to explain how this couldn't have possibly come from shifting cargo, it turns out - you're right!

step forward and claim your prize

The graphic in the video fails somewhat. The vehicles would have been loaded along the centerline and chained down, not secured with cargo netting along one side.

At least every MRAP I've seen transported by air were loaded in the way I described. Like in this picture:

[www.nycaviation.com image 602x401]

The ones I've seen in person have been on a C-5, not a 747, but this pic is from a 747.

aaaaand... is insufficient to keep the vehicle from breaking loose if you pull the nose up too hard.